The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[Part 1: Enclosure to a letter to Marie von Sivers, early January 1906]

The development of the Earth

The earth is the fourth of the seven planets on which the human being successively develops his seven states of consciousness. It has been shown that the moon is the arena for the development of image consciousness. An “image” is only similar to, but not the same as, its object. But the consciousness that is developed on earth produces images that are “equal” to the object to which they belong in a certain respect. That is why earthly consciousness is also called “object consciousness”. However, this object consciousness only develops during the fourth, smaller cycle of the earth (round). During the first three, the conditions previously experienced on Saturn, the Sun and the Moon are briefly repeated. But it must be said again that it is not a mere repetition, but that during this repetition the physical body, the etheric body and the astral body are transformed in such a way that they can become the carriers of the “I”, on whose development in the fourth round the object consciousness depends.

So when, after the third round of repetition on earth, a kind of state of sleep is again experienced - between the so-called archetypal and the arupic globe - then, at the beginning of the fourth round, everything that can be considered the result of the development of Saturn, the sun and the moon emerges, initially in an arupic form. So we are dealing here with the descendants of the three lunar realms: the mineral realm, which is still in some sense plant-like, the plant realm, which has something of animal life, and an animal realm that is higher than the present animal kingdom. These three realms together form the planet that is emerging from the twilight: the Earth. It should be noted, however, that the former Sun and Moon are still contained in this Earth. When the Moon Manvantara came to an end, the Sun and Moon reunited and passed into Pralaya as one body. They will also emerge again as one body, although the tendency to split has already become apparent in the third round of the earth. Now the earth is going through the rupa and astral state during the fourth round, and is then preparing to become physical again.

The development of this physical state in the three kingdoms mentioned is the responsibility of the “spirits of form”. They transform the earlier “sense-germs” into truly formed sense organs, especially in the case of the highest kingdom, the animal-human kingdom. In all the earlier physical states through which man has passed, the sense organs had not yet taken on a fixed form.

Now, by acquiring a fixed form, these organs cease to be active; they lose their productivity, they become purely passive, suitable for merely perceiving what is offered from outside as objects. The productive power thus withdraws from the sense organs; it goes more inward; it forms the organ of reason. But this organ cannot be formed without a certain part of the human comrades being pushed down to a lower level. But now man himself pushes part of his being down into a subordinate region. He separates off a part of his being as his own lower nature. And this lower nature retains the productive power that the sense organs have had to give up. This productive power, pushed down into a lower sphere, becomes the power of sexual procreation as it occurs on earth. The “spirits of form” would cause all generative power and thus all life to solidify, to harden into mere form, if they did not concentrate this power on one part of the human being. Therefore, the spirits of form bring about sexual development. Without this, statues would have to be created instead of living human beings.

Now the whole process is linked to a complete transformation of the earth. Conditions arise that allow the beings described to live. This is made possible by the fact that the earth – still united with the moon – splits off from what remains as the sun. As a result, the sun emerges as an independent body opposite the earth. This is the external physical condition for the emergence of external perception, of object consciousness, and for the development of sexual predispositions. But at this time we are still dealing with a dual sexuality. This is because all the moon forces are still contained in the earth. During this time, however, although the organ of intellect is present, it is still completely inactive. It will only be able to develop its activity when the power of sex production has diminished by half, so that each being has only half of the former power of production. This then gives the two sexes. Outwardly, this is brought about by the emergence of those forces from the earth, which then orbit the earth as the present moon. If this separation had not taken place, the whole earth would have had to become a rigid mass, a mere form. But in this way only that which absolutely had to become firm has been removed from it, and this has become the moon, on which human life could not develop. Thus, out of the common planetary matter, the earth has saved what could be productive, even if only in the lower realm of sexual life. The representative of the “spirits of form” is Jehovah. He thus brings about the formation of the sense organs; but he also brought about, if he were now more alone in his activity, the complete solidification into mere form.

Now two events are significant for the further development. The one is the origin of the two sexes for the reason given above. The form of the sexual stems from the form-spirits. But this does not yet give the attraction of the two sexes for each other, their inclination towards each other. This is due to the fact that special beings embody themselves in the life of the two sexes, which descend from a foreign place: from Venus. Through them, love in its most subordinate form, as an inclination of the sexes, is now incorporated into the earth. This love is called upon to ennoble itself more and more and later to take on the highest forms.

Just as the Venus beings now release the element [of inclination] of the separate sexes [to each other], they also enable the intellect to become fruitful. It receives half of the productive capacity saved from the sexual power. For this reason, the monads – initially their manas part – which, as shown, formed during the Saturn, Sun and Moon cycles, can now descend into the organ of mind. But the activity of the monads would have remained cold and dry if the astral body had not received such an impact that the human being would have pursued the activity of his mind with a certain higher passion. This influence came to man from Mars. And those who conveyed it are the luciferic beings, who on the moon have indeed gone beyond the stage of the later existence of man on earth, but have not yet reached the point where, like the Lunar Pitris, they could have concluded their lunar development with the Lunar Manvantara. They, as initiates, now bring the astral forces of Mars into the astral body of man and thus fan the passion for the activity of the intellect in him. In this way they quicken man's realization; they stir him up to independence. This is the help in man's further development, which is provided by the luciferic principle. Admittedly, they also combined self-interest with knowledge. For they do indeed kindle thinking through passion, and this brings about self-interest. But only through this has it become possible for man to make the earth subservient to his purposes, to use it for his own benefit. Jehovah would have given only the form of the organ of understanding, and the spirits from Venus would have awakened only in this one dispassionate sense; for what could be given by them in this direction has indeed been delivered to the power of reproduction.

[Part 2: From the letter of January 7, 1906 to Marie von Sivers]

Yesterday it seemed to me that the thoughts I wrote down for you to read tomorrow still need to be expanded. Perhaps you will receive these lines soon enough. Therefore, I still want to add a few things to the chapter “Earth Education”.

You know that the Lunar Pitris, the beings who precede man by one stage, have to bring their existence on the moon to a stage that is analogous to the stage of human existence on earth. Let us now consider the middle of the earth's development. You know that man absorbs the impacts of Mars and Mercury and thus strives towards his “Jovian existence” as one strives towards an ideal. Of the three parts of the astral body – the sentient soul, the mind soul and the consciousness soul – man brings only the first, the sentient soul, from the moon; the mind soul comes from the impact of Mars, the consciousness soul from that of Mercury. The consciousness soul can only unfold because the forces that will later come to full development on Jupiter are already casting their shadows, so to speak. The consequence of this casting of shadows is the unfolding of the consciousness soul, which, as described in my Theosophy, can only then become the bearer of the spirit self. Insofar as the human being develops 'Manas' today, he is already living into the Jupiter stage. The Jupiter stage is now followed by the development of Venus for all beings that belong to the seven-part human evolution. Just as the human being lives towards Jupiter, so the Lunar Pitris of the moon (the 'twilight spirits'), when they have undergone their normal development, live towards the Venus existence. And the “fire spirits” are already there. They live there towards their existence on Vulcan.

If we want to describe the present situation correctly, we have to say: the human being lives on Earth towards Jupiter; the Zunar Pitris live on Jupiter towards Venus, and the fire spirits live on Venus towards Vulcan. When a being has reached the level of Vulcan itself, it has become a creator. During the development of the earth, the “spirits of form” are now in this situation. They are therefore the creators of the earthly human being. And to the extent that they are this, “Jehovah” is their representative. Since the middle of the earth's development, man has been dealing with: 1) With his creators, the spirits of form, who gave him his earthly form; 2.) with the fire spirits, which gave his astral body the sensual affects; 3.) with the Lunar Pitris, who gave this astral body earthly knowledge; and finally 4.) with himself, who lives as “I” in the consciousness soul.

The intervention of the fire spirits occurs in the Lemurian period, then the work of the lunar Pitris is added, and in the fifth sub-race of the Atlantean period, man begins to develop into an independent “I”. The incomplete lunar Pitris now work differently in this order than the complete ones. The latter impress the astral body from the outside in perfection with the Mercury impact; the former, however, must first complete themselves with what is developing in man. So they are stuck in man with their own essence. This makes them the luciferic principle.

Very early on, I was drawn to Kant. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, I studied Kant very intensively, and before I went to the University of Vienna, I occupied myself intensively with the orthodox followers of Kant from the beginning of the nineteenth century, who have been completely forgotten by the official history of science in Germany and are hardly ever mentioned anymore. Then I immersed myself in Fichte and Schelling. During this time — and this belongs already to the external occult influences — the conception of time became completely clear. This realization had no connection with the studies and was directed entirely from occult life. It was the realization that there is a backward-going evolution interfering with the forward-going evolution — the occult-astral one. This realization is the condition for spiritual vision.

Then came the acquaintance with the agent of the Master.

Then an intensive study of Hegel.

Then the study of the newer philosophy as it had been developing in Germany since the 1850s, namely the so-called theory of knowledge in all its ramifications.

My childhood passed without anyone outwardly intending to do so, so that I never encountered anyone with a superstition; and when someone around me spoke of superstitions, it was always with a strongly emphasized rejection. I did get to know the church cultus, as I was called upon to assist at cultic services as an altar boy, but nowhere, not even among the priests I met, was there any real piety or religiosity. Instead, certain dark sides of the Catholic clergy kept coming to my attention.

I did not meet the master immediately, but first one of his disciples, who was completely initiated into the secrets of the effectiveness of all plants and their connection with the cosmos and with human nature. For him, dealing with the spirits of nature was something that was taken for granted, and it was presented without enthusiasm, but it aroused all the more enthusiasm.

The official studies were directed towards mathematics, chemistry, physics, zoology, botany, mineralogy and geology. These studies offered a much more secure foundation for a spiritual world view than, for example, history or literature, which, in the absence of a specific method and also without significant prospects in the German scientific community at the time, stood there.

During his first years at university in Vienna, he met Karl Julius Schröer. At first, I attended his lectures on the history of German poetry since Goethe's first appearance, on Goethe and Schiller, on the history of German poetry in the 19th century, on Goethe's “Faust”. I also took part in his “exercises in oral and written presentation”. It was a kind of college college based on Uhland's institution at the University of Tübingen. Schröer came from German language research, had done significant studies on German dialects in Austria, he was a researcher in the style of the Brothers Grimm and in literary research an admirer of Gervinus. He was previously director of the Viennese Protestant schools. He is the son of the poet and extraordinarily meritorious pedagogue Christian] Oeser. At the time I got to know him, he was turning entirely to Goethe. He has written a widely read commentary on Goethe's “Faust” and also on Goethe's other dramas. He completed his studies at the German universities of Leipzig, Halle and Berlin before the decline of German idealism. He was a living embodiment of the noble German education. In him, the human being attracted. I soon became friends with him and was then often in his house. With him it was like an idealistic oasis in the dry materialistic German educational desert. In the external life, this time was filled with the nationality struggles in Austria. Schröer himself was far from science.

But I myself had been working since early 1880 on Goethe's scientific studies.

Then Joseph Kürschner founded the comprehensive work “Deutsche National-Literatur” (German National Literature), for which Schröer edited Goethe's dramas with introductions and commentaries. Kürschner, on Schröer's recommendation, entrusted me with the edition of Goethe's scientific writings.

Schröer wrote a preface for it, through which he introduced me to the literary public.

Within this collection, I wrote introductions to Goethe's botany, zoology, geology and color theory.

Anyone reading these introductions will be able to find the theosophical ideas in the guise of a philosophical idealism.

It also includes an examination of Haeckel.

My 1886 work, Erkenntnistheorie, is a philosophical supplement to this.

Then, through my acquaintance with the Austrian poet M. E. delle Grazie, who had a fatherly friend in Professor Laurenz Müllner, I was introduced to the circles of Viennese theological professors. Marie Eugenie delle Grazie has written a great epic “Robespierre” and a drama “Shadow”.

At the end of the 1880s, I became an editor of the “Deutsche Wochenschrift” in Vienna for a short time. This gave me the opportunity to study the national psyche of the various Austrian nationalities in depth. The guiding thread for an intellectual cultural policy had to be found.

In all this there was no question of publicly emphasizing occult ideas. And the occult powers behind me gave me only one piece of advice: “All in the guise of idealistic philosophy”.

All this went hand in hand with my more than fifteen years of work as an educator and private teacher. My first contact with Viennese theosophical circles at the end of the 1880s had no lasting external effect.

During my last months in Vienna, I wrote my small paper: “Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetic”.

Then I was called to the then newly established “Goethe and Schiller Archives” in Weimar to edit Goethe's scientific writings. I did not have an official position at this archive; I was merely a contributor to the great “Sophien Edition” of Goethe's works.

My next goal was to lay the purely philosophical foundations of my world view. This was done in the two works: “Truth and Science” and “Philosophy of Freedom”.

The Goethe and Schiller Archives were visited by a large number of scholars and literary figures, as well as other personalities from Germany and abroad. I got to know some of these personalities better because I soon became friends with the director of the Goethe and Schiller Archives, Prof. Bernhard Suphan, and visited his house a lot. Suphan invited me to many private visits that he had from visitors to the archives. It was on one of these occasions that I met Treitschke.

But the friendship I formed soon after with the German mythologist Ludwig Laistner, the author of “Riddle of the Sphynx,” was much deeper. I had repeated conversations with Herman Grimm, who spoke to me a great deal about his uncompleted work, a “History of German Imagination.”

Then came the Nietzsche episode. Shortly before, I had even written about Nietzsche in an opposing sense.

My occult powers pointed out to me the need to let my interest in the true spiritual flow unnoticed into the currents of the times. One does not arrive at knowledge by wanting to assert one's own point of view absolutely, but by immersing oneself in foreign currents of thought.

Thus I wrote my book on Nietzsche by placing myself entirely in Nietzsche's point of view. It is perhaps for this very reason the most objective book on Nietzsche in Germany. Nietzsche as an anti-Wagnerian and an anti-Christian is also fully represented.

For some time I was considered the most uncompromising “Nietzschean.”

At that time the “Society for Ethical Culture” was founded in Germany. This society wanted a morality with complete indifference to all worldviews. A complete construct and a danger to education. I wrote a sharp article against this foundation in the weekly “Die Zukunft”.

The result was sharp replies. And my previous study of Nietzsche led to the publication of a pamphlet against me: “Nietzsche-Narren” (Nietzsche Fools).

The occult standpoint demands: “No unnecessary polemic” and “Avoid defending yourself wherever you can”.

I calmly wrote my book, “Goethe's World View,” which marked the end of my Weimar period.

Immediately after my article in “Zukunft,” Haeckel approached me. Two weeks later, he wrote an article in “Zukunft” in which he publicly acknowledged my point of view that ethics can only arise on the basis of a worldview.

Not long after that was Haeckel's 60th birthday, which was celebrated as a great festivity in Jena. Haeckel's friends invited me. That was the first time I saw Haeckel. His personality is enchanting. In person, he is the complete opposite of the tone of his writings. If Haeckel had ever studied philosophy, in which he is not just a dilettante but a child, he would certainly have drawn the highest spiritualistic conclusions from his epoch-making phylogenetic studies.

Now, despite all of German philosophy, despite all of Haeckel's other German education, Haeckel's phylogenetic thought is the most significant achievement of German intellectual life in the second half of the nineteenth century. And there is no better scientific foundation of occultism than Haeckel's teaching. Haeckel's teaching is great and Haeckel is the worst commentator on this teaching. It is not by showing Haeckel's contemporaries his weaknesses that one benefits culture, but by presenting to them the greatness of Haeckel's phylogenetic ideas. I did this in the two volumes of my:

“Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im 19. Jahrhundert” (World and Life Views in the 19th Century), which are also dedicated to Haeckel, and in my small work: “Haeckel and his opponents”.

In Haeckel's phylogeny, only the time of the German intellectual life actually lives; philosophy is in a state of the most desolate infertility, theology is a hypocritical fabric that is not remotely aware of its untruthfulness, and the sciences, despite the great empirical upsurge, have fallen into the most barren philosophical ignorance.

From 1890 to 1897 I was in Weimar.

In 1897 I went to Berlin as editor of the “Magazine for Literature”. The writings “Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im 19. Jahrhundert” (World and Life Views in the 19th Century) and “Haeckel und seine Gegner” (Haeckel and his Opponents) already belong to the Berlin period.

My next task was to bring an intellectual current to bear in literature. I placed the Magazin für Literatur at the service of this task. It was a long-established organ that had existed since 1832 and had gone through various phases.

I gently and slowly led it in the direction of esotericism. Carefully but distinctly, by writing an essay for the 150th anniversary of Goethe's birth, “Goethe's Secret Revelation,” which only reflected what I had already hinted at in a public lecture in Vienna about Goethe's fairy tale of the “green snake and the beautiful lily”.

It was only natural that a circle of readers should gradually gather around the direction I had inaugurated in the Magazin. They did gather, but not quickly enough for the publisher to consider the venture financially promising. I wanted to give the young literary movement an intellectual foundation and was actually in the most lively contact with the most promising representatives of this movement. But on the one hand I was abandoned; on the other hand, this direction soon either sank into insignificance or into naturalism.

Meanwhile, contact with the working class had already been established. I had become a teacher at the Berlin Workers' Education School. I taught history and natural science. My thoroughly idealistic history method and my way of teaching soon became both appealing and understandable to the workers. My audience grew. I was invited to give a lecture almost every evening.

Then the time came when I, in agreement with the occult forces behind me, could say: You have given the philosophical foundation of the world view, you have shown an understanding of the currents of the time by treating them as only a complete believer could treat them; no one will be able to say: This occultist speaks of the spiritual world because he is ignorant of the philosophical and scientific achievements of the time.

I had now also reached the fortieth year, before the onset of which, in the sense of the masters, no one may publicly appear as a teacher of occultism. (Wherever someone teaches earlier, there is an error).

Now I could devote myself to Theosophy publicly.

The next consequence was that, at the urging of certain leaders of German socialism, a general assembly of the Workers' Educational School was convened to decide between Marxism and me. But the ostracism did not decide against me. In the general assembly, it was decided with all against only four votes to keep me on as a teacher.

But the terrorism of the leaders meant that I had to resign after three months. In order not to compromise themselves, they wrapped the matter up in the pretext that I was too busy with the Theosophical movement to have enough time for the labor school in.

Miss v. Sivers was at my side almost from the beginning of the theosophical work. She also personally witnessed the last phases of my relationship with the Berlin laborers.

For information; it cannot yet be said in this form.

The Theosophical Society was founded in New York in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky and H. $. Olcott. This first foundation had a distinctly Western character. And also the writing “Isis Unveiled”, in which Blavatsky published a great deal of occult truths, has such a Western character. However, it must be said of this writing that it presents the great truths that are communicated in it in a distorted, often caricatured way. It is as though a harmonious countenance were seen entirely distorted in a convex mirror. The things said in Isis are true, but the way they are said is an irregular reflection of the truth. This is due to the fact that the truths themselves are inspired by the great initiates of the West, who are also the initiators of the Rose Cross wisdom. The distortion stems from the inappropriate way in which these truths were absorbed by the soul of H. P. Blavatsky. For the educated world, this fact should have been proof of the higher source of inspiration for these truths. After all, no one who expressed them in such a distorted way could have received them through themselves. Because the initiators of the West saw how little chance they had of continuing the flow of spiritual wisdom into humanity in this way, they decided to abandon the matter in this form for the time being. But once the gate was open, Blavatsky's soul was prepared so that spiritual wisdom could flow into it. Eastern initiators were able to take possession of it. These Eastern initiators initially had the very best of intentions. They saw how humanity was heading towards the terrible danger of a complete materialization of the way of thinking through Anglo-Americanism. They, the Eastern Initiators, wanted to instill their form of anciently preserved spiritual knowledge into the Western world. Under the influence of this current, the Theosophical Society took on an Eastern character, and under the same influence, Sinnett's “Esoteric Buddhism” and Blavatsky's “Secret Doctrine” were inspired. But both became distortions of the truth. Sinnett's work distorts the lofty pronouncements of the initiators through an inadequate philosophical intellectualism carried into it, and Blavatsky's “Secret Doctrine” through their own chaotic soul.

The result of this was that the initiators, including the Eastern ones, increasingly withdrew their influence from the official Theosophical Society, and that this became a playground for all kinds of occult powers that distorted the high cause. There was a brief episode in which Annie Besant, through her pure, lofty way of thinking and living, came into the initiators' current. But this little episode came to an end when Annie Besant surrendered to the influence of certain Indians who, under the influence of German philosophers, who they misinterpreted, developed a grotesque intellectualism. That was the situation when I myself was faced with the necessity of joining the Theosophical Society. It had been founded by true initiates, and thus it is, even if subsequent events have given it a certain imperfection, for the time being an instrument for the spiritual life of the present. Its beneficial further development in Western countries depends entirely on the extent to which it proves capable of incorporating the principle of Western initiation among its influences. For the Eastern initiations must necessarily leave untouched the Christ principle as the central cosmic factor of evolution. Without this principle, however, the theosophical movement would have to remain without a decisive influence on Western cultures, which have the Christ life at their starting point. The revelations of Oriental initiation would have to present themselves in the West as a sect alongside living culture. They could only hope to succeed in evolution if they eradicated the Christ principle from Western culture. But this would be identical with extinguishing the actual purpose of the earth, which lies in the realization and realization of the intentions of the living Christ. To reveal this in its full wisdom, beauty and form is the deepest goal of Rosicrucianism. Regarding the value of Eastern wisdom as a subject of study, there can only be the opinion that this study is of the highest value because Western peoples have lost their sense of esotericism, while the Eastern peoples have retained it. But only the opinion should exist about the introduction of the right esotericism in the West that this can only be the Rosicrucian-Christian one, because it also gave birth to Western life, and because by losing it, humanity would deny the meaning and purpose of the earth. Only in this esoteric can the harmony of science and religion flourish, while any fusion of Western knowledge with Eastern esotericism can only produce such barren bastards as Sinnett's “Esoteric Buddhism” is. One can schematically represent the correct:

[Transcription:] Primordial Revelation Evolution Indian esotericism Christ / Esoteric Rosicrucianism Modern Western materialistic science Synthesis: fruitful modern Theosophy

the incorrect, of which Sinnett's “Esoteric Buddhism” and Blavatsky's “Secret Doctrine” are examples:

[Transcription:] Primordial Revelation Evolution Indian esotericism / Development not shared by the Eastern world / Modern materialistic science / Synthesis: Sinnett, Blavatzki.

In union with death, love is created by the soul; in union with unconscious life, memory is created by the soul: and in memory [only] is self-awareness created. In the realm of love, the objective spiritual world comes into being; in the realm of memory, the subjective spiritual world comes into being. Memory is imagination set in physical life; love is intuition set in physical experience.

In the consciousness of the self, memory creates the image of the self; in the experience of death, love creates the substance of the eternal world.

The knower of the supersensible is not born into the normal life of the human being before the age of 35: He should not be obscured by the dying body. Before the age of 35, the human being has the eternal within him as an “object”. He only becomes the “subject” at the age of 35. In our time, the so-called initiation can take place at the age of 35 if the conditions have been established beforehand. Before that, people could perceive the spirit in the descending life, but they had to learn to understand it through the mysteries.

Today, at the age of 29, the human being enters the age when he can begin to look back in order to perceive something objective within himself.

Sensory perception: seeing death in the field of the external world.

Inner, spiritual experience: sensing life in the field of the inner world.

We are separated from life by memory; we draw the power of love from death.

We should not seek the “I” within. It is there no more than air is in the lungs. The “I” comes with perceptions and thoughts. In the course of life, it passes over into feeling and will.

When you look at youth from an older perspective, the eternal is revealed in the young person. In old age you become a “father”; before that you were a “cosmic knower”; with the “young person” you still see the “world of the spirit”; before that you see “humanity in yourself”

Before: “the human being” Before: the soul still turns against humanity: 21st-28th year.

Before: the soul turns against “cosmic lawfulness”.

Do not just ask: Is the soul immortal? Instead, ask yourself: What is initially experienced in consciousness is there because of the mortal body? You must first get to know what is immortal within the soul. The soul is in the realm that it leaves with death – its body is removed from this realm. In it, between birth and death, it reflects what is not in the spiritual world; through it it cannot reflect what it itself is. This would be reflected if what is newly developing in the body were to look at what has entered the body. In this, the soul is intuitively united with the universe: hence no capacity for love.

In the soul that is in the body, the ability to remember is preparing itself so that the self can become conscious.

The right questions only arise for a person in the second half of life. In the first half, one only feels these questions. The questions are received from the “elders” - in the second half of life, a life of perception and imagination arises in the life of feelings and will.

The spiritual being of the human being closes in on itself.

As a result, the other, material world enters the vacuum; in this vacuum the spiritual world is only reflected. The “I” has no positive reflection, but is merely a mirror image.

From the universal Saturn sun are the reflections: in the bone-muscle system.

From the telluric Saturn-Sun beings: sense system, apparatus of representation.

From the universal Moon: nervous system.

From the telluric Moon: vascular system.

From the Earth: circulatory system.

Spiritually: I

Spiritual: I

turned towards the “I”: nervous system
turned towards the “etheric body”: vascular system

Physical:

The reflections of the pre-earthly systems have been filled.

As the human being develops physically, his ego descends into the body; it reappears when the body organization recedes; but it comes up empty if it does not draw from the spiritual world, because the withering away of the body no longer yields spiritual substance.

1. The processing of nature observation by the intellect leads away from the connection in which man initially stands in perception with nature. This connection is a living one - senses and thinking are involved in it -: man loses himself in it - nature offers what it has as living spiritual.

1. Modern natural science has concepts that no longer include the soul. (This was still different in the 16th century).

2. Only by penetrating into the supersensible is it possible to observe nature. This shows that the sensory side of nature is one with the inner world of the human being. It brings man to his own ephemeral being. Either you stop at observation and description, in which case you live in the living world; but you have not understood it. Or you proceed to explanation, which brings you more and more to experimentation, and then you have understood it, but in a dead way. There lies the transition to the pure supersensible.

Behind the world of the senses lies the supersensible; but man in the world of the senses as a sensual being. The supersensible is contained in the sensual. The supersensible is experienced in such a way that one strives for a kind of knowledge that goes in a completely different direction.

3. A social science will be a barren one if it does not absorb the powers of supersensible knowledge. A social theory modeled on natural science and put into practice creates processes of destruction. A purely anthropological foundation of sociology does not really speak at all of the forces at work in social life, but only of the processes of social dissolution. In this respect, the scientific study of life exposes humanity to the greatest dangers.

4. A scientific age cannot remain on the ground of the old cooperations. For science isolates the human individual.

5. The supernatural, grasped through science, does not give the personal relationship to the divine that is necessary for man. This belongs to the special field of religion. Man of the scientific age alone would lose the religious if he did not gain it through supersensible knowledge.

Theologia naturalis, Raymund von Sabunde, † 1432.

6. The age of religious justification is over; it is impossible to speak of a “religion of the future” because that personal relationship of man to the divine, which must take place in a religious justification, no longer exists. It requires the direct working of the spirit in the human soul, which has ceased with scientific thinking. Revival is necessary in each individual. Stronger inner powerful worship for the supernatural.

Jesus seen as earthly king.

My kingdom is not of this world. — Jerusalem = temple = destruction of the temple =

The human being is born in the sign of equality; it veils itself in the world order present in the sensual world; freedom develops within, in death the human being is free in the external; during life, fraternity should prevail, which has its culmination point in the middle of life.

Thus, in the course of life, man goes from the spirit through the body to the soul – for the spiritual in the earthly belongs to the earth: the talents are Luciferic; the body is of the earth: the habits are Ahrimanic –: the “human being” is to rise above both.

Greek attempts at justification, etc. Roman body.

Jesus' birth – this thought leads to it.

The characteristic peculiarities and deeds of the peoples are the after-image of past spiritual processes — what appears as the mission of a people is only the living out of the spiritual past; and in this there is nothing that has any other significance for people of the present than that in it the germs of the individual human beings develop for their abilities in the future.

Everything that lives in such historical events is Ahrimanic: war, material progress. Sleeping man is led out of the luciferic sphere, so that Jahve can work on the luciferic during sleep.

The working person is led out of the Ahrimanic, so that the “Holy Spirit” may work in him. Insofar as a person lives spiritually with other people.

Christmas: a festival of childhood - reminding us of spiritual equality.

Christ has nothing to do with processes of destruction; these are processes on the physical plane - man participates in them through selfishness, untruth and illness (death); the contemplation of Christ is a contemplation of supersensible truth - it invigorates (makes one newly born) the power of imagination; it destroys appearances by impressing upon it the revealing essence; it dispels selfishness by presenting a matter of concern to all mankind; in Christ men might understand each other if they would take him supersensibly — if they would regard him as the sun, which has different reflections in the nations, but can be regarded in itself as it moves. The differences should be recognized; but “man is not of this earth,” the nations are. Through ordinary judgment and conclusion, man reaches only to the “spirits of personality”; but they already escape this ordinary conclusion — and man would be condemned to worship a mere folk spirit as “God” if he did not ascend to imaginative knowledge. Man is seen to be slipping away from himself – how he becomes incomprehensible –: –

In social life: one treats labor as a commodity; one should recognize the unchristian aspect of this – one turns a part of the human being into a machine –; how did slaves come about? Through conquest. Christ overcame that. He equalized the difference before men through equality before God. What one has made should be judged according to the value of consumption.

The concept of value cannot be applied to nations in the same way as to people.

Today, many people talk about the “social question” as if it were a matter of replacing existing social systems with others in which certain demands will be met that are raised by broad masses of people as being necessary for a dignified existence. Some institutions are seen as anti-social and efforts are made to develop social ones. When one speaks of the transfer of the means of production from private to common ownership, this is currently based on such a way of thinking. Under the influence of this way of thinking, one does not notice that the administration of the means of production by the community can have just as unsocial an effect as private-capitalist administration if those administering behave unsocially towards their fellow human beings.

In recent times, we have had to experience that the social order has taken on an anti-social character. We are looking for the causes of this. We see that we live in private capitalist economic systems. We form the judgment from this that these economic systems have undermined social justice. We exclude the human element by forming this judgment. One believes that the institutions, by their own nature, impose their character on social life.

As long as such insights remain within the circle of “scientific thinkers”, they are harmless. Other such “thinkers” come and refute the one-sidedness. The harmlessness ceases as soon as one sets about making institutions that have been conceived out of such one-sidedness. The present is faced with the danger of reshaping the order of life in a way that corresponds to the one-sidedness described. In large areas of Eastern Europe, things are happening that put humanity in such danger.

Recognizing the fatal errors that are made when such a transformation of social life is undertaken is one of the most important tasks of the present day. Realized errors kill life. The temptation to fall into such errors is great. This is because it is brought about by recognizing the damage in what already exists. These are there; and they show that something new must be created. Whether the new does not lead to even worse damage is not considered as long as one is hypnotized by one-sided ideas that one wants to realize.

Karl Marx thoroughly understood the damage of previous economic systems. He saw that this damage resulted from private capitalism. In it arose the idea: If there is no private capitalism, the damage will be eliminated. This idea hypnotized him. And the hypnosis caused him not to penetrate to the question: How did private capitalism produce the damage?

Anyone who asks this question and has a sense of the realities of life will find that private capitalism as such is not the cause of the damage. It is not because individuals or groups of people manage capital that life becomes anti-social, but because these individuals or groups exploit the results of their management in an anti-social way. Private capitalist management makes it possible for the individual with ability to extract the greatest conceivable value from the management. The social interests themselves demand that this should happen. If management by the individual with ability is replaced by management by the general public, the productivity of management is undermined. For within this generality, free initiative, the full effect of individual ability and willingness to work, cannot be realized.

The Marxists saw how the modern relations of production concentrated the masses of capital in the hands of a few. They formed the opinion that the administration of the concentrated masses of capital could one day pass over to the generality. They did not see that with this transition everything that can be achieved through the power of individuals must disappear with concentration. The point is not to eliminate these achievements based on the power of individuals, but to introduce them into the cycle of the social organism in the right way.

Let us face the facts. The demands of the modern economy have brought private capitalist management to a certain level. Its productivity depends on this level. At the same time, however, this productivity has given rise to an anti-social structure of the social order. If we strive to make economic life itself social, we will take away its productivity.

A truly social way of thinking must strive for a way of life that does not detract from the fertility of economic activity. It must leave the management of the means of production to the individual. It will therefore have to ask: How can the anti-social aspects that are necessarily brought about by this management be transformed into a social one?

It will not be possible to achieve the social through a retrogressive transformation of economic activity. But it is a retrogressive transformation to endanger what has become fruitful through the fact that the individual has been able to fully apply himself in economic life. We must not go back to economic forms in which the individual is again more bound by the community. The opposite must be striven for. The effect of the power of the individual must be encouraged.

With this impact, the power of the individual grows, if this growth depends solely on economic life. Within economic life, institutions cannot be created that would remove the disadvantages that arise when the individual comes to a power that harms his fellow human beings. They must arise outside of economic life.

The idea of the threefold social order does not seek to shape economic life in an impossible way, but rather to channel the social flow of forces into the economic cycle through the separate administration of the legal and spiritual life, which it can never develop from within itself. By its own nature, economic life can be neither social nor anti-social. It can only be administered in such a way that the goods needed by the community are produced by the economic activity of people with the appropriate expertise and skills. People attain their positions within economic life through their expertise and professional skills. They can only act in these positions in a socially just manner if no other relationships arise with their fellow human beings as a result of holding them. But this can only be the case if the tendency of economic life to produce such other relationships can be continuously counteracted. Man cannot do this in a position in which he is economically active. He can only work fruitfully in it if he does not need to have any other considerations in mind than to satisfy the manifest needs of his fellow human beings from the economic sources available to him. The other relationships must be established in a way that economic life has no influence on. Such other relationships are the cultivation of spiritual and legal-political life.

It is only because the results of economic work, the cultivation of spiritual life and the legal and political institutions are organized in each other in the whole of life that people believe they must also manage the interacting factors from a central point. Because a person must have the abilities to work profitably in economic life, people believe that they must also obtain the institutions through which these abilities are developed from economic life. But this does not promote the cooperation of spiritual life with economic life, but hinders it. The only thing that can be decisive for how a person works when he holds an economic position is what economic life demands. Economic life cannot do anything to develop abilities for this position. Therefore, he should not be able to get such a position through something that is based in economic life itself. The head of a business should work in such a way that goods are produced in the most appropriate way through his work. The independent spiritual life should ensure that the abilities for such leadership are developed in the human being. Abilities only develop when they are cultivated from a spiritual point of view. To cultivate them, it is necessary that there is an area of life in which the abilities of people are developed appropriately from their own being.

An obvious objection to the idea of the threefold social order is that a state that proceeds to implement this idea would disrupt its international relations with other states that retain their old institutions. This objection prevents many who understand the timeliness of a threefold social order from approaching the idea of its corresponding practical design.

These misgivings arise from the justified insight that a state which attempts to carry out socialization on its own in the sense of orthodox or modified Marxism would be unable to maintain undisturbed economic relations with states organized differently. It is therefore important to establish whether the concerns that apply to such socialization also apply to the threefold order of the social organism.

This clarity cannot be gained without considering the way in which humanity's economic life has developed in recent times. And the most striking fact here is that this economic life has the most pronounced tendency to regard the historically given state borders as non-existent for itself. National economies tend to merge into a unified world economy. The historical conditions that gave rise to the demarcation of states have gradually ceased to be of decisive importance for the economic interests of the people living in those states. The international tendencies of both capitalist and socialist circles are connected with this tendency towards the formation of a unified world economy. This is most evident in international socialism. However, it fails to recognize what is really demanded by the development of the times because it focuses only on economic life. It sees that this life has taken on forms that cannot be taken into account if the institutions of the state, which have become historical, determine the motives of the individuals and groups of individuals who engage in economic activity. He therefore wants to reshape these institutions so that they correspond to world economic conditions. He has a world economy in mind, in which the individual economic sub-areas are to be the states that have come into being historically. However, he wants to transform these into large cooperatives. He is thus on the way to turning the state into a mere economic society. He does not shrink from pursuing this idea because, under Marxist influence, he has developed the belief that the corresponding legal and intellectual institutions will arise “by themselves” from the economic institutions. Anyone who realizes that this is a fallacy must do justice to the tendency of the latest time after the formation of a world economy in a different way.

The more the unified world economy develops, the more it will require that what happens in its area be dependent on economic considerations. A necessary condition in this regard can be brought about if, within states, the legal relationships of citizens and their intellectual interests are separated from economic life. If, as a result of this separation, economic life is administered only as such within a social organism, it will only enter into relations with other social organisms through institutions that stem from it. The legal and intellectual organizations with which the economic sphere is associated are not considered in terms of economic relations with the outside world. The individuals or groups of individuals of one social area enter into direct contact with those of the other, uninfluenced by state relations.

In more recent times, this contact has been impeded by the fact that the interlinking of economic life with legal and political interests and intellectual interests from older human developmental epochs has been preserved and has opposed the urge for world economy. This interconnection can be seen in the facts that led to the catastrophe of the World Wars. One of these facts was the situation in southeastern Europe, where this catastrophe originated. The spiritual antagonism between the Slavs and the Germans was the underlying cause, leading to conflict. Political events came into play. The old Turkish regime was replaced by the democratically oriented Young Turk regime. The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria and the declaration of Bulgaria as a kingdom were the result of the political upheaval in Turkey. Thirdly, Austria's urge to expand its trade relations to the south worked together with the other two. (The endeavor to lay tracks in this direction in its interest is an expression of this urge.) The concatenation of these three factors in the efforts of the unified states that were interested in them made it possible for the catastrophe to occur. And anyone who has followed the negotiations that have been conducted because of the Baghdad Railway can see how national antagonisms, that is, intellectual interests and state aspirations, repeatedly play a decisive role in a matter that could have been purely economic. These are two striking examples among many. In the southeast of Europe as well as with the Baghdad Railway, measures that would have been undertaken only in the interest of the world economy would not have become causes of world catastrophe in themselves. They became so because the unified states combined different interests with economic ones.

It might now appear that the consideration of these facts fully justifies the objection raised against the threefolding of a social organism in the midst of such states, which retain their old structure, as fully justified. For one might think that the economy of these other states, supported by state power, would crush the social organism, which does not want this state power behind its economy. This applies to an economic state that is organized in line with Marxism, because such a state wants to use the framework of the existing unitary state to impose economic forms that it considers beneficial. The result should be that all the disadvantages that have arisen from the fact that the economies of individual states have opposed the trend of the world economy would be greatly increased. The world economy strives to shape economic relations between individuals and groups of people purely according to their needs. The state economies interfered with this process by shaping what should arise from economic demands according to their own interests. If the states become economic cooperatives, the interference will have ceased to be a determining factor.

The opposite must occur if, in accordance with the idea of the threefold social organism, economic life is completely removed from the state sphere and stands on its own. Then the people belonging to this organism will be able to enter into free economic relations with foreign countries. How these foreign countries enter into relations with them will depend only on which economic interest is present in such a transaction.

When speaking of spiritual science, it is assumed that there is an interest that is detached from the human being – a state of mind that is not readily available. If I wanted to win followers for a personal opinion or aspirations, it would be illegitimate. This movement is only justified if the necessary insights are proclaimed. Those who only want personal gain will not understand this - people may say to me: Why don't I make it clear what should not be? But the resistance tires - and this resistance is abundant: a response to the intentions that have been made clear is rarely forthcoming. All the more often a bending of these intentions - one can always, what arises from human compassion, from the standpoint of cold reasonableness condemn - and what is done out of cold reasonableness, from the point of view of compassion condemn. But one should bear in mind that events sometimes necessitate one or the other point of view: anyone who did not act in this way would not be able to speak of spiritual science in the present day: At most, he could, but this is antiquated and would be an anachronism, brood over his spiritual experiences as a hermit. I have repeatedly met people who wanted to do this – people who were disappointed by mystical movements. I had to say to myself: These people do not consider that what they do in secret, after it has matured in the next incarnation, would come to Earth too late. I understood such people, but I could not do as they did. If I had done as they did, it would have been more comfortable - because the way I did it challenged those who wanted to put the matter into their personal service.

Why are the attacks so hateful? Because they do not want to get into the matter; because they want to discredit the matter through personal attacks. They are actually opponents of the truth; but they do not want to admit it to themselves – they do not want truth at all, but authority. – The opponents are only the necessary counter-strike of those who believe in authority.

It is necessary to found a bank-like institution that serves economic and spiritual endeavors in its financial activities, which are oriented towards the anthroposophically oriented worldview both in terms of their goals and their attitude. It should be distinguished from ordinary banking enterprises in that it not only serves the financial aspects, but also the real operations that are supported by the financial side. It will therefore be particularly important that loans, etc. are not granted in the way they are in ordinary banking, but rather from the factual point of view of the operation to be undertaken. The banker should therefore be less of a lender and more of a merchant who is in the know, who can realistically assess the scope of a transaction to be financed and make practical arrangements for its execution.

The main focus will be on financing such ventures that are likely to put economic life on a healthy associative footing and shape intellectual life in such a way that legitimate talents are placed in a position where they can express themselves in a socially fruitful way. What is particularly important is that, for example, enterprises that currently yield a good return are centered in order to support other enterprises with their help, which can only bear economic fruit in the future and above all through the spiritual seed that is now poured into them, which can only come to fruition after some time. It is necessary for the bank's officers to have an insight into how the view of life that comes with anthroposophy can be translated into economically fruitful action. To do this, it is necessary to establish a strict associative relationship between the bank's administrators and those who, through their ideal work, can foster an understanding of an enterprise to be brought into being.

An example: a person has an idea that promises economic fertility. The representatives of the ideology can evoke understanding for the social consequences. Their activity is financially supported by the amounts to be received, which at the same time are intended to support the economic and technical realization of the idea.

The main focus must be on supporting the centers of the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement itself. The building in Dornach, for example, cannot support anything at first; nevertheless, it will bring a mighty economic return in later times. It must be made clear that anyone can support it materially, even if it means compromising their financial conscience, if they can see it as being materially fruitful in the long term.

The undertaking must be based on the realization that technical, financial, etc. activity can develop branches which, although they may temporarily produce favorable results for the individual entrepreneur, have a destructive effect in the context of the social order. Many of the latest undertakings were oriented in this way. They were capitalized, and it was precisely through their capitalization that the social order was undermined. Such endeavors must be confronted by those that arise from healthy thinking and feeling. They can be integrated into the social order in a truly fruitful way. However, they can only be supported by a social mindset inspired by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

It is true that an undertaking such as the one characterized here can initially only overcome the social-technical and financial possibilities of crisis and that it will face social difficulties as long as these, as the actual workers' question, still take the form that comes from the old mode of production, which is doomed to crisis. The workers involved in the new ventures will, for example, behave in the same way in wage differences as they do in relation to old-style ventures. However, one must not underestimate how quickly a company of the kind characterized here can have socially beneficial consequences if it is managed correctly. This will be seen. And the example will be convincing. If a project of this kind comes to a halt, then the workers involved will have their convictions with them when they get back on track. Only by aligning the interests of manual workers with the spiritual leaders of enterprises, through a way of thinking that affects all classes of people, can the forces of social destruction be counteracted.

The basic condition is that spiritual endeavors be intimately connected with all material ones. We cannot achieve such an orientation with the forces currently available in the anthroposophical movement because we do not have a practical enterprise in its bosom that has grown out of its own forces, except for the Berlin Anthroposophical Publishing House. But this alone is not enough to serve as a model, because its economic orientation is only the external expression of the power of spiritual science as such. Only those enterprises that do not have spiritual science as such as their content, but that have a content based on the spiritual-scientific way of thinking, can truly serve as models. A school as such can only be considered exemplary in this respect when it is financially supported by only those enterprises whose entire institution has emerged from spiritual-scientific circles. And the Dornach building will only be able to prove its social significance when the personalities associated with it have brought into being such enterprises that are self-supporting, provide the people who support them with the appropriate maintenance and then still leave so much that the deficit always demanded by a spiritual enterprise can be covered. This deficit is not really one at all. For it is precisely the fact that it arises that brings about the fructification of material enterprises.

You just have to take things really practically. That is not what the one who asks does: How, then, should one do a financial or economic enterprise in the sense of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science? That is simply nonsense. Because you don't do anything practical with mere thoughts. It is essential that the powers organized in the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement itself undertake the enterprises, i.e., that bankers, factory owners, etc., join forces with this movement, that the Dornach building become the real center of a new entrepreneurial spirit. Therefore, no “social”, “technical” etc. “programs” are to be set up in Dornach either, but the building is to create the center of a way of working that is to become the way of working in the future.

Those who decide to give financial support to the Dornach enterprises must understand that we have now reached the point where supporting enterprises in the old sense means investing in the sterile, and that supporting one's money today means supporting future-oriented enterprises that alone are capable of withstanding the devastating forces. Short-sighted people who still believe that such things have never borne financial fruit will certainly not support the efforts in Dornach. Those who do support them must be far-sighted people who are truly capable of financial and economic judgment and who realize that continuing to muddle along in the old ways means digging a secure grave for themselves. These people alone will not follow in the footsteps of the destroyed livelihoods of the last four to five years. Working with companies in the same old way means nothing more than using up financial and economic reserves. Because even the reserves of raw material and agricultural production, which last the longest, are being used up. Their financial and economic fructification does not lie in the fact that they are there, but that the labor is possible through which they are supplied to the social organism. But this labor belongs entirely to the reserves. Everything for the future depends on a new spirit also getting the leading position for the individual enterprise.